As some of you may or may not know, I recently graduated (within the last few years) from Azusa Pacific University with an MBA degree. Throughout my course work, I was hit by an “I don’t give a...” feeling. I guess that’s the problem with going straight from undergrad work to masters. Lately I’ve been finding myself diving back into old textbooks revisiting concepts and theories that I had bothered to learn, but not remember any true useful details.
One of these said areas is Marketing. SURPRISE! As I've heavily invested time and effort into learning everything I can about web marketing and specifically the SEO/SMM fields, it's becoming clear that there are great advantages to diving back into the old materials, as marketing principles don't really change despite the medium. The next few posts (I'm not sure how many) will relate to marketing, marketing research, and specifically some thoughts on combining the old school thoughts with the "new" marketing medium (www). Much of my reading will come from the Marketing Research A Practical Approach for the New Millennium book written by Joseph Hair Jr., Robert Bush, and David Ortinau.
Marketing: Concept and Culture
According to the text, the common marketing concept for all businesses consists of three major elements:
1) consumer oriented
2) goal directed
3) system driven
The authors continue to discuss the concept that businesses normally produce what consumers want, not what the business believes they need. Let's stop right there.
The big question (or one of them) I have is this: Do B2B businesses need to follow the marketing theory stated in this last section?
As a B2B business, Forefront Consulting aims to of course give a business what it wants. However, I believe that part of truly serving a business is giving them what they "need" even if they don't want it. Whether they choose to accept what is offered, is of course, up to them.
The SEO and Web Marketing Link
This is a bit of a leap, but for those that choose to stay with me, I think it will make sense. In general, there are more and more businesses that are aware of some of the possibilities that exist for building their brand online, but don't really understand what they are playing with. Think of a 16 year old who knows that a Porsche can go really fast and handle well, but has never driven a car. 16 year old + porsche (often could) = disaster.
As a Web marketing consultant, I believe that we ( me and others like me) have a duty to "take the keys" at times and get control of a situation. Marketing, no matter what the medium needs to be holistic in nature, and if web marketing is not properly supported by other parts of the business (goals, people, processes, resources) then great waste and damage can occur. As was stated in the text, the general marketing concept for firms is an all inclusive one.
I believe a major key to developing a strong web marketing and SEO/SMM campaign, is tight coordination with all aspects of the business. If this does not exist, you are playing with fire and the job of a web marketer to be successful hinges on things often outside of his control. This takes honest, an ability to analyze a business fully, dig deep into what the process are, flow is, buy in for your project, and identification of potential problems. To get started I often use a SWOT analysis for the business. This brings things into focus and begins to clear the picture for what role the web marketing campaign needs to fill. It's more than keywords, link building, competitive analysis, etc. It will affect all parts of the business.
So here is the next big question:
As business owner, if you spot signs of danger (lack of offline business and marketing support) would you worn the business (even if you may lose the client) or would you continue with a plan that may make short term profits for the both of you, but may ultimately end in damage for the business?
Tell me more about how you've seen interplay between a businesses offline operations and it's web marketing support.
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